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Parisian Sunday has always been unworthily quiet. The shops are close but a few like Printemps made an exception yesterday to help the Christmas shoppers tick off their to-do lists at a faster and merrier pace. The smell of leather, the yieldingly soft cashmere and shiny display at the cosmetic counters got me a little giddy as we wove through the festive vines searching for a pair of perfect gloves.

In the afternoon, we had suckling pig for lunch with roasted sweet potato, then decided to avoid the touristy streets and made our way to the nearby Parc Monceau for an afternoon walk. The park deprived of sun and warmth looked oddly inhospitable. It wasn’t surrounded by birdsong, neither were there families, friends and amorous couples. Still, there were some traces of gaiety added by the carousel.

Walked passed the Cathédrale Saint-Alexandre-Nevsky, a Russian Orthodox cathedral and picked up some chocolates from À la mère de famille. Knowing that we’d be travelling (again) from Paris to Languedoc that evening, we decided to not arrange too many plans in a day and exhaust ourselves before the four-hour train ride.

À la mère de famille, which can be directly translated into “the mother of the family”,is 250-year-old chocolaterie in Paris. In the early 20th century, their items of confectionery received a place of honour during the International Culinary Exhibition in Paris and the trade has since been prospering. I have yet to try their confiture (jam), which also received an honour, but their callison and chocolate are enough to win me over. The website is in French but if you’re keen to know a thing or two about the story behind this renowned confectionery (or pick up tailored recipes of marshmallow pop and blackcurrant marshmallow), glide over to France Today.

One of the best things being in Paris is that you’ll always be surrounded by beautiful things. Architecture, traditional shops, people, flowers… You probably can’t avoid stepping on a little discharge of posh puppies but let’s say that such mishap will always be quickly offset by the opulence of this city.

I’m currently blogging in Béziers, an old historical town in Languedoc, located at the south of France bordering on Spain. (You can read about my summer visit in another part of this region here.) The weather is superb and the sun’s feeling very generous.